Irwin Jacobs recalled the time when Qualcomm, an upstart company in need of cash, first offered to license its Code Division Multiple Access wireless patents to other mobile equipment makers.

Qualcomm got an upfront fee, and if the product turned into a success — which certainly wasn’t guaranteed — then licensees would pay a royalty to Qualcomm for each device sold.

That turned out to be one of the best moves the company made because royalty fees soared as the company’s CDMA technology became widely used in third-generation 3G mobile networks around the world.

Today — 25 years later — Qualcomm is an $11 billion technology giant and San Diego’s largest company. It is rare for the region because — as one technology executive put it — Qualcomm “went the distance.” It didn’t reach a certain size and sell to a larger competitor as is the case with many local startups.

To mark its 25th anniversary, founder Irwin Jacobs and his son, current Chairman and Chief Executive Paul Jacobs, talked about the past and future of the company Wednesday to a group of journalists and employees.

Irwin Jacobs, wearing a tie and speaking in a Boston accent, and Paul Jacobs, in an open-collared shirt and jacket, recalled some well-known anecdotes about the company’s early days, including debates with skeptics over whether CDMA technology would actually work.

Once it caught on, customers who worried that they were relying too much on Qualcomm’s technology coined the acronym ABQ — Anything But Qualcomm — Irwin Jacobs said.

And in the late 1990s when the company’s stock soared, managers worried that employees with stock options would leave.

Irwin Jacobs said it was remarkable that “so few people said, ‘I’m rich enough I don’t have to work anymore.’ ”

Paul Jacobs, who took over from Irwin as CEO five years ago, said the company continues to maintain the culture of innovation that it had in its early days.

“I think the thing that excites most Qualcomm employees is the idea that we can literally change the world with our ideas because we can get those ideas and put them into the hands of 100 million people in a matter of three months.”

Looking ahead, both men believe the future of wireless technology is bright. They see wireless health care, wireless education, mobile commerce and the proliferation of wireless technology in other devices as boding well for the industry.

“I think credit cards will end up in a museum just like the wired phone,” Irwin Jacobs said.

“The whole high-tech industry is excited about the possibilities that wireless is bringing,” Paul Jacobs said.